History is full of memories of brave deeds. The names of the men who did them have passed away. The deeds live on forever. Like a fleck of radium each deed is indestructible. It may be covered with the dust and débris of uncounted years, but from it pulsates and streams forever a current of example and impulse which never can be hidden, never be forgotten, but which may flash out ages later, fighting with a mysterious, hidden inner strength against the powers of fear and of wrong.
The annals of the Civil War are full of records of forgotten doers of great deeds, humble, commonplace men and women who suddenly flashed out in some great effort of duty and perhaps were never heard of again. Pray God that all of us when the time comes may burst if only for a moment into the fruition of accomplishment for which we were born and not wither away like the unprofitable fig-tree which only grew, but never bore fruit.
In 1862, the battle-hospitals were crowded with wounded and dying men. The best surgeons of that day had not learned what every doctor knows now about the aseptic treatment of wounds and conducting of operations. Accordingly too often even slight wounds gangrened and a terrible percentage of injured men died helplessly and hopelessly. In the fall of that year the hospitals at Jefferson were in a fearful condition. Thousands and thousands of wounded and dying men were brought there for whom there were no beds. One poor fellow lay on the bare, wet boards, sick of a wasting fever. He was worn almost to a skeleton and on his poor, thin body were festering bed-sores which had come because there was no one who could give him proper attention. From his side he had seen five men one after the other brought in sick or wounded and carried away dead. One day an old black washerwoman named Hannah stopped in the ward to hunt up a doctor for whom she was to do some work. She saw this patient lying on his side on a dirty blanket spread out on the boards unwashed and filthy beyond all description with gaping sores showing on his wasted back. There he lay staring hopelessly at the body of a man who had recently died next to him and which the few overworked attendants had not had time to carry out to the dead-house. Old Hannah could not stand the sight. When she finally found the doctor she begged him to give her leave to take the man up and put him in her own bed.
"It's no use, Hannah," said the doctor kindly, "the poor chap is dying. He will be gone to-morrow. I wish we could do something for him, but we can't and you can't."
Hannah could not sleep that night thinking of the sick man. Bright and early the next morning she came down and found him still alive. That settled it in her mind. Without asking any one's permission, she went out, looked up her two strapping sons and made them leave their work and bring her bed down to the hospital. It was covered with coarse but clean linen sheets and she directed them while they lifted the sufferer on to the bed and carried him down to her shanty. There she cut away the filthy shirt which he wore and washed him like a baby with hot water. Then she settled down to nurse him back to life. Every half hour, night and day, she fed him spoonfuls of hot, nourishing soup. That and warm water and clean linen were the only medicines she used. For a week she did nothing else but nurse her soldier. Several times he sank and once she thought him dead, but he always rallied and single-handed old Hannah fought back death and slowly nursed him back to health. Finally when he was well, he was given a furlough to go back to his home in Indiana. He tried to persuade Hannah to go back with him.
"No, honey," she said, "I'se got my washing to do and besides I'm goin' to try to adopt some more soldiers."
She went with him to the steamboat, fixed him in a deck chair, as he was still too feeble to walk, and kissed him good-bye and when she left the man broke down and cried. Old Hannah went back to her shanty and did the same thing again and again until she had nursed back to life no less than six Union soldiers. As she was not in active service, the government never recognized her work and even her last name was never known, but six men and their families and their friends have handed down the story of what a poor, old, black washerwoman could and did do for her country and for the sick and helpless.
The exploit of Lieutenant Blodgett and his orderly, Peter Basnett, was a brave deed of another kind. He had been sent by General Schofield during the engagement at Newtonia with orders to the colonel of the Fourth Missouri Cavalry. As the two rode around a point of woods, they suddenly found themselves facing forty Confederate soldiers drawn up in an irregular line not fifty yards away. There was no chance of escape, as they would be riddled with bullets at such a short range. Moreover neither the lieutenant nor his orderly thought well of surrendering. Without an instant's hesitation they at once drew their revolvers and charging down upon the Confederates, shouted in loud, though rather shaky voices, "Surrender! Drop your arms! Surrender at once!" The line wavered, feeling that two men would not have the audacity to charge them unless they were followed by an overwhelming force. As they came right up to the lines, eight of the men in front threw down their muskets. The rest hesitated a minute and then turned and broke for the woods and the lieutenant and his orderly rode on and delivered eight prisoners along with their orders.
In the battle of Rappahannock Station, Colonel Edwards of the Fifth Maine showed the same nerve under similar circumstances. While his regiment were busy taking a whole brigade of captured Confederates to the rear, the colonel with a dozen of his men rode out into the darkness after more prisoners. Following the line of fortifications down toward the river, he suddenly came out in front of a long line of Confederate troops lying entrenched in rifle-pits. Like Lieutenant Blodgett, he decided to make a brave bluff rather than be shot down or spend weary years in a Confederate prison. Riding directly up to the nearest rifle-pit where a score of guns were leveled at him, he inquired for the officer who was in command of the Confederate forces.
"I command here," said the Confederate colonel, rising from the middle pit, "and who are you, sir?"